So You Want to Be an Online Model?

There has been a recent buzz in social media of girls working from home in their underwear to cover their bills, and for some it amounts to a lot more. Of course, with the cat out of the bag there are tons of girls signing up on these sites to make an extra buck. The downfall is that a lot of these girls start modeling online with high hopes and quickly learn it is not easy money.

The key to surviving in this thriving jungle is to be prepared before you even head in. This is some of the best advice I can give to anyone who wants to do what I do for a living. Throw away everything you have ever heard about being an online model. Every girl is different, and each will be as successful as they make themselves. How do you make yourself successful? Work, and a lot of it. You must treat it like a business if you want it to pay like one. Be professional. Showing weakness, and naiveté online is like calling all the wolves out. What I am saying is, it is counter productive to your financial well-being to be ignorant in this game.

Every girl gets a fair chance. You can give yourself a leg up, if to know what you are doing.

Learn what you need to learn in order to prepare yourself to entertain and comfort hundreds, or thousands of followers, before you get started.

Before you start out, you will want to create your alter ego. Your alter ego is the person you actually send out on that virtual stage. Choose your alter ego and your niches wisely. It is difficult to change your brands image after you release it.

Once you do release your image, you still have tons more to learn and set up. Of course, you have to decide exactly what you will offer. Then you have to find somewhere to market yourself. The online industry has grown to a point that you have to build your fan base one person at a time. You have to earn respect, trust, and be able to maintain dignity even if desperation is knocking at your door. Most customers expect to get what they pay for. Meaning that you have to produce quality media, and give a rewarding interaction. You will tip your regular waitress more than you will a new waitress. The same concept works here. You will make more money from return customers than you will from first timers.

Don’t quit your job just because you have started to work on cam, or have taken a few photos. It will take a bit of time before you are making enough money to pay your rent and all the extras. You will definitely need that regular paycheck at first. Being an online companion is hard work, and often draining. There are good times and there are bad times too. The secret too longevity is to stay on top of your own production, and set in place reliable back up plans for yourself.

Don’t depend on a site to pay you on time. This sounds counterintuitive, but it is true. Things come up often, at the most inconvenient times. When it comes to a web site, it pays to know who you are working for. Trust is a two-way street. Make it your business to know what your keeping percentage rate really is, and know when your pay days are. Make sure to set up a system you trust. Read every word of every appropriate FAQ and look closely at the TOU to make sure you are a good fit for the site you are evaluating. Compare your sites before you run around uploading videos in places where they wont sell. Make sure what you are offering is what the site promotes. Read up on review sites about your prospects. For instance, If you have your eye on Mygirlfund, then it would be a good idea to see what other girls’ experience with Mygirlfund is on an independent review site like the one I linked.

Don’t sell yourself short.

No matter how much a site promotes you, (Sometimes as a new girl, you are heavily promoted!) you still need to promote yourself. Aggressively develop your social networks, and present an image of quality, and consistency.

A word to the wise about going Indie.

Sure you can go the independent route right? You could be an indie provider, and build your own site, or better yet… Email photos or videos, and Skype camshows for PayPal? Wrong! You can’t use PayPal for adult material. Don’t do anything in the adult industry with PayPal… This is dangerous. I can’t stress how dangerous, yet still it is widely accepted by many mainstream webcam sites. Your number one priority is to protect your investment of time, and content. Don’t have PayPal freeze your funds because you wanted to take the easy way. (It happened to me!) Either build your own site from the ground up, or choose a pre-existing platform, that uses a payment service you trust. You do have the right to do that, and there are sites out there that will also respect that fact.

So far I have covered how to choose where to set up shop, but I haven’t touched on what it takes to get going. Nothing is free, and starting a business or being self-employed takes an investment on your part. You have to know what you need. You need to know how much it costs to get the basics. You need to know how to use your equipment. By equipment I mean, Your laptop, cam, camera, and software to keep it pretty basic. Of course you can always go cheap, make sure to get the best you can for what you have. I highly recommend constantly investing back into what your business if you want it to improve. Spend the time and the funds, and it will pay off.

Make sure you know what you are doing when jumping into online modeling. Know what you want and know how you are going to get it. Don’t get in the pool, until you know how to swim.

Any points that I missed? I’d love to hear what you think is essential have-to-know points for new girls in this industry.